William Armstrong was a fascinating character and one of the greatest engineers of the 19th century. His shipbuilding and armaments works on the River Tyne were about 25 miles from here. He built Gatling guns under licence from Colt. His home, Cragside, in Northumberland was the first house in the World lit by electricity and at the time of Custer's defeat at LBH the house had a hydraulic elevator.

Check out The Great Gun-Maker by David Dougan (ISBN 0-946098-23-9) for a brief biography.

There’s a sci-fi movie war movie called Mutant Chronicles that takes place in a WW1 feeling world that is stuck in time with steam cannons and steam powered planes. During a battle they accidentally allow the mutants to escape from their underground prison. Then they have to fight them instead of each other. Actually a pretty good movie. Enjoyed the video Drydock. Obsolete the day it was commissioned, how much did that white elephant cost the British taxpayer?

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"Give'em hell, Pike" There is no horse so dead that you cannot continue to beat it.

I think that's a bit misleading: Smokeless powder was introduced in 1886, but only for rifles, it would take nearly 10 years before the technology could be safely adapted to large bore artillery. The gun could be considered an effective piece until 1900. That it was a ML was the more obsolete technology, but the sophisticated loading system compensated for that. That it was an ML was due to the question of Metallurgy in something of that bore size!

That the writing on the wall was clear by the late 1880s, but only as a technical excercise, practical applications always lag behind.